


thanks, my butler made it

by drakefeathers



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Fashion Icon Dick Grayson, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Knitting, listen the jason parts are sad ok, preboot timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-15
Updated: 2019-09-15
Packaged: 2020-10-19 09:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20654768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drakefeathers/pseuds/drakefeathers
Summary: Alfred knits some sweaters for his kids over the years.





	thanks, my butler made it

The first sweater that Alfred knits for Dick is a Christmas present.

He initially worried the project was too ambitious, considering how many years it’s been since he knitted anything, but the long nights spent waiting for Bruce and Dick to come home safely give him plenty of time to work on it, and the knitting gives him an outlet for his restless worrying. It’s rare that either of them returns home with an injury that can’t be fixed with an ice pack or a bandage. Still, he worries.

Some would perhaps find the sweater a garish thing—a Fair Isle pullover in red, green, and yellow certainly isn’t for everyone. But those are Dick’s colours, and the way his face lights up when he unwraps it proves that it’s perfect.

“Wait, you made this?” he realizes, his eyes wide with amazement. “Alfie, that’s awesome! It’s so great!”

He throws his arms around Alfred’s waist and gives him a tight hug, brief only because he’s too eager to throw off his current sweater and try on his gift. He spends the rest of the day wearing it and preening even more than he did the first time he tried on his Robin uniform. 

Dick hits a growth spurt that winter. He keeps wearing the sweater even as it becomes smaller and smaller on him. It won’t be long until he’s unable to even pull it over his shoulders, so Alfred picks up his knitting needles and gets to work on another. Summer is on its way, but the cave underneath the manor is damp and chilly no matter the season, and Dick spends far too much time down there.

A particularly nasty cold causes Dick to be benched for several nights, much to his vocal and congested dismay. He spends those evenings with Alfred in the living room, drinking plenty of tea and attempting to get ahead of his schoolwork. 

“I can’t believe how fast you are at that,” Dick says, watching Alfred knit a sweater from the red yarn he picked out. 

“I need to be, young sir, considering how quickly you’ve been growing lately. If I don’t hurry this jumper may already be too small for you by the time I’ve finished.”

Dick laughs at that. “Can you make it have a letter D on the front?” he asks. “Like my name?”

“Or perhaps an R, for Richard and Robin?” Alfred suggests.

Dick considers it, but shakes his head. “Nah, Richard’s my uncle,” he says. Then, suddenly excited, “Oh! Maybe you could make one for me with a D, and make another one with a B, for Bruce, and then you can have one with an A. That way we could all match. It would be fun, like…” He trails off, losing steam in his own idea. “Nevermind, that’s dumb, and way too much work. Forget it.”

Alfred is rather bemused by Dick’s request, and doesn’t take it seriously until the next week, when he’s tidying in the boy’s room. As he carefully dusts the family photos arranged on the dresser, he realizes that in nearly all of the pictures, the subjects are matching in some way. In their circus outfits, of course, but also with their silly tourist hats, and Halloween costumes.

He mentally scolds himself for not understanding sooner, and makes a note to buy more yarn. 

Only one of the sweaters is worn with any regularity, the other two rarely see the outside of a closet. But it’s worth the effort just for the photo that gets placed upon the fireplace mantle in the living room. It never fails to make Alfred smile when he dusts around it.

* * *

Alfred loses count of how many garments he knits for Dick over the years. Even as the boy grows into a teenager, he doesn’t grow out of his enthusiasm for the hand-knit sweaters. He never finds them embarrassing like some of his peers might, and is always eagerly ready with a suggestion for the next project whenever Alfred should ask.

His choices tend to be quite bold, and interesting to knit—snowflake cardigans and argyle sweater-vests, novelty sweaters with tigers and toucans based on patterns from the 80s. A chunky knit zippered jacket with a motif of wild ducks flying. Even a pullover with a Superman logo, which makes Bruce’s eye twitch when he sees Dick wearing it for the first time. 

The day that Dick moves out of the manor is a sad one. Alfred could make a dry comment about birds leaving the nest, but his throat is too tight with emotion, so he says very little while he helps Dick pack up his things. 

Bruce is conveniently absent that afternoon. Dick pretends not to care, but Alfred notices how he keeps glancing out the window, as though looking for a car to pull up the driveway.

Alfred understands Dick’s need to go and forge his own path, he just wishes those two could be on better terms while it happens. 

Dick begins carrying the full boxes out to his car as Alfred finishes packing the rest of his clothing. Before Alfred seals the last box, he places the striped blanket he just recently finished atop the folded clothes. 

Alfred had a feeling that a day like this was coming soon, so he pulled together all the leftover sweater yarn he’s been accumulating over the years and crocheted this blanket. He hopes it will make Dick feel more at home, wherever he lands. 

He stands outside on the front steps and watches as Dick drives away. The manor is very quiet once he’s gone. For a while, anyway.

* * *

The new boy is a bit of a scavenger. Several things go missing the first few days—silverware, one of Bruce’s watches, a box of protein bars from the pantry. Alfred merely waits and, surely enough, they are all returned without fuss over the next week, as Jason settles into his new home.

It’s a quite a shock when, one morning, Jason walks into the kitchen wearing a tattered navy raglan-sleeved sweater that Alfred hasn’t seen in over well over a decade.

He doesn’t know where on earth Jason found it, he’d never even realized it had made its way back to the manor. The last time he saw it, he was packing it up to mail as a birthday gift to Bruce, in boarding school. An attempt at reaching out to his uncommunicative young charge. It succeeded, as he remembers Bruce did finally write back to him after that.

The sweater is in a sorry state, moth-eaten near the hem, the neckline fraying badly. It looks like it’s been through considerably more than a year or two at an expensive boarding school. Bruce has always been secretive about that part of his life, but based on his dismal attendance record and several disciplinary notices, Alfred now suspects that he was doing plenty of learning outside of the classroom, preparing for his future career.

“Master Jason, that old jumper is falling apart,” Alfred remarks. “Surely you have something better to wear.”

“I like it,” Jason says defensively, twisting his hands in the sleeves. Like the rest of the garment, they’re too big—he’s rolled them up several times and they’re still too long. “It’s comfy and I don’t have to worry about messing it up like all those fancy clothes you got me.”

Alfred wouldn’t consider the shirts and jeans he bought for Jason _fancy_, by any means, but he doesn’t see the point in arguing with him. After breakfast he takes Jason to a seldom-used spare bedroom and opens the cedar chest at the foot of the bed, where he stores many of the sweaters Dick had outgrown long ago.

Jason holds up a multicoloured checkered cardigan with a disgusted look on his face. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Master Dick was very fond of this one,” Alfred says as he takes it and folds it neatly again, feeling slightly nostalgic.

Together they find a few acceptable sweaters that will fit Jason—a cabled pullover, and a couple of the more subdued striped numbers. He wears them now and then, but not as often as that baggy old sweater of Bruce’s, which he stubbornly claims as his favourite.

Alfred fishes it out of the laundry one day and fixes it up, darning the holes, patching the elbows, and unwinding and re-knitting the sleeves to a more manageable length.

“Alfred, have you seen—“ Jason begins to ask when Alfred enters his room, and Alfred hands him the sweater in question from the basket of clean laundry he’s carrying. 

Jason holds it out in front of him and stares speechlessly at the repairs. His lip wobbles, his eyes filling with tears of gratitude as he looks from the sweater to Alfred. And then he’s fully sobbing. 

Alfred gently pulls him into a hug. “There, there,” he says comfortingly, patting the boy’s shuddering back. He knows this isn’t just about the sweater. The poor child has been through so much. “Everything will be all right from now on.”

The patches need tending a few times, with all the wear the sweater is getting. Alfred darns new holes as they appear, now and then. Eventually Jason grows enough that Alfred has to rip back and lengthen the sleeves again. 

Jason just keeps growing, even faster than Dick did—Alfred has a feeling he’ll rival Bruce in size by the time he’s done—and there isn’t anything more that Alfred can do for the garment. He dreads the day that Jason outgrows it entirely.

* * *

The fever has finally subsided, and Bruce is sleeping quietly, without the delirious tossing and turning of the past hours. There is nothing to do but wait for him to awaken.

When he does, if he’s able to stand, he’ll surely ignore both his own wounds and Alfred’s warnings and head back down to the damned cave. Alfred sighs, wondering how much more of this recklessness either of them can take.

Alfred’s knitting basket has gone untouched these past few months. He goes and finds it now, and settles into the chair by Bruce’s bed to sit vigil.

The half-finished sweater in his basket was shaping up so nicely. It’s truly a shame, all of it. He removes the needles and tugs on the yarn, pulling it apart stitch by stitch, row after row. 

His vision blurs with tears, but it doesn’t hamper his progress. It seems to take very little time to unwind the sweater, leaving him with several balls of forest green yarn that he won’t ever use. 

Jason picked the colour. It would have looked very handsome on him.

* * *

Alfred doesn’t knit anything for a long time after that. Even if he wanted to, he’d scarcely have the time. The next few years are just one crisis after another—grievous injuries, allies gone mad, epidemics, natural disasters, military blockades… 

The chaos does subside, eventually, and their lives settle once more into some semblance of normalcy. But, even so, Alfred feels no inclination to knit so much as a sock.

Then, Tim returns from a weekend with the Titans, bringing with him a bundled up blanket. “Alfred, do you know how to fix this?” he asks.

Alfred takes the blanket and unfurls it to survey the damage. It’s clearly gotten a lot of use since he sent it along with Dick. The yarn has felted slightly from many washes. The border along one side is completely gone, and there are several holes throughout where someone wisely knotted off the loose yarn to prevent entire rows of crochet from unravelling. The worst damage is where parts of it have been _singed_, like—

“Don’t ask,” Tim says sheepishly, when he sees Alfred inspecting the burned spots. “It’s been through a lot. Everyone fights over it during movie nights, which can get vicious. I think it’s pretty old, too. It’s been at the tower since before I joined.” He gives Alfred a hopeful smile. “So, do you think it’s salvageable?”

Alfred smiles back and folds the blanket to take upstairs. “I’ll certainly see what I can do.”

The blanket looks worse than it actually is. It’s simply a matter of re-crocheting sections of the unravelling and damaged rows. He carefully joins the new stitches with the existing rows as he works, and soon it’s back in one piece again. He even has enough of the original yarn left that he can match the colours of each row exactly.

Alfred hands the blanket back to Tim as he is getting packed to spend another weekend with the Titans. Tim stares at it like Alfred has done magic, stammering out his confused thanks.

“It was my pleasure,” says Alfred. “Do be sure to tell your friends to be more careful from now on, however. There is only so much I can do.”

Tim nods, still bewildered, and searches the surface of the blanket as though looking for some seam or discrepancy to explain it, but finds nothing. “Yeah. Yeah, of course.”

A few weeks later, Alfred receives a message from Dick with a very endearing picture attached—Tim, still in full uniform, napping under the blanket on the Titans Tower sofa, his mouth wide open mid-snore. Apparently it’s been shared around quite a bit, as Alfred hears Spoiler and Batgirl teasing Tim about it over the comms during their patrol.

Alfred is guilty as well. He saves the picture and can’t resist showing it to Leslie the next time they have tea together.

* * *

Cassandra doesn’t seem to care for sweaters. She is prone to wearing shorts outdoors well into November, much to Alfred’s concern. She’s like Bruce, in that way. 

There are a couple of skeins of very fine cashmere-blend yarn in Alfred’s knitting basket, left over from a project years ago. Just enough to knit her a soft black cowl—meaning a short, looped scarf, not those ridiculous bat-eared masks they wear at night. 

Alfred drops it off at her apartment, along with her clean laundry and a batch of muffins he baked that morning. She thanks him distractedly, focused on deciphering a forensic report for the case she’s working on.

He doesn’t mind. Years of working for Bruce have taught him to know when he’s appreciated. It’s enough to see her wearing it. In fact, that very week, she uses it to hide most of her face and preserve her identity while foiling a daylight convenience store robbery in civilian clothing. Not Alfred’s intention, but he’s glad it came in handy.

Cassandra pays him a visit at the manor, sneaking up behind him in the kitchen and nearly making him drop a tray of scones. “Barbara said you _made_ this,” she says, touching the cowl around her neck and looking up at him in admiration. “How?”

They sit down with some needles and yarn and Alfred shows her how to knit. She watches his hands for a few minutes and then picks up a set of needles herself and starts casting on. Her stitches are rather uneven at first, but she gets the hang of it incredibly quickly.

The next time Alfred stops by her apartment to drop off groceries and tidy up, he sees a gift-wrapped bundle on the kitchen counter, addressed to him. Inside is a very long scarf made of brightly variegated craft store yarn. It’s not particularly warm, but he proudly wears it for the rest of the winter.

* * *

Another crisis ends. Bruce and the boys go on a trip around the world, with no set date of return. Meanwhile, Alfred finds himself with more free time than he’s accustomed to. 

He decides to spend some of that time knitting a sweater for Tim; a gift to welcome him home. Because the manor will be his home, from now on. The look on Tim’s face, as he steps out of the car and realizes that, is heartbreaking.

When Tim tries on the sweater, Alfred sees that he chose poorly—the charcoal grey turtleneck makes Tim look paler, drawing attention to the dark bags under his eyes. The fit is wrong, making him look even thinner than he’s become. Tim doesn’t seem to notice or mind, and wears it often enough. Alfred is just glad that it’s keeping him warm.

Tim leaves it behind when he leaves Gotham, after they lay Bruce to rest. Alfred waits anxiously for him to call, and hopes that he isn’t somewhere very cold.

* * *

Alfred smiles, as he looks across the penthouse and sees Damian lounging on the couch, playing a handheld video game and wearing a familiar old sweater with a letter D emblazoned on the front.

Many of the sweaters he knitted for Dick have been claimed by others over the years. A few had gone to Jason, then Tim and Cassandra. Lately he’s even seen Stephanie wearing a particular Superman pullover that’s just slightly too small on her. None of them were ever able to fit the smallest sweaters, however. Dick during his earliest days at the manor was about the same size Damian is now.

Damian scoffed at the hand-me-downs at first, but he looked at them in a new light when he learned they belonged to Dick. Just a few days prior, when they went out shopping, he picked out a leather jacket very similar to the one Dick often wears.

Alfred didn’t say anything at the time, of course, just as he doesn’t say anything now, and quietly continues preparing lunch.

Dick does a double-take when he walks in. It takes him a moment to recognize the sweater Damian is wearing. Once he does, a soft smile spreads across his face, fond and nostalgic.

“Nice sweater, Damian,” he says genuinely, leaning over the back of the sofa to talk to him.

“Alfred put it in my closet,” Damian says without looking up from his game, his tone carefully indifferent. He keeps a straight face but he can’t hide the embarrassed flush that tinges his cheeks. “It is adequately warm.”

“Yeah, it looks comfy. I’m jealous, I wish I had one like that.” 

Dick casts a hopeful glance over at Alfred, that Damian can’t see. Alfred nods back. It’s a simple pattern, once he gets the yarn it shouldn’t take very long at all.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] thanks, my butler made it](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22037914) by [reena_jenkins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reena_jenkins/pseuds/reena_jenkins)


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